By Beth Landman
The road to beauty for Mariela Sanchez began in a calamitous way. She was giving her toddler a bath when she slipped and hit her head on the tub, resulting in a brain injury that kept her from working, followed by Bell’s palsy, which temporarily paralyzed some of her facial muscles.
During her recovery, Sanchez turned to alternative routes, including acupuncture, face yoga, gua sha and meditation. She credits these methods with her rapid recovery. “Meditation and breath really helped with confusion symptoms, while Chinese medicine focused on my face as a way to assess my entire body’s well-being,” explains Sanchez, who is the founder of the holistic self-care company No Faux Mindful Beauty & Wellness.
She was so impressed by the effects of Eastern techniques that Sanchez is now studying to become a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner, and using many of these methods while performing facials at her No Faux Studio in the Gramercy Park area, at Satori House in Sag Harbor and via house calls in the Hamptons. Starting in October, she will be holding meridian face yoga retreats at the luxury resort Inness in Accord, New York, and she plans on opening her own spa sometime within the next two years.
Sanchez also incorporates treatments from neurology. “My functional neurologist was using tuning forks. I could be having the worst day with headaches and a twitching eye, but when he brought out the tuning forks, I immediately felt better,” she recalls.
She is using those forks, as well as face-mapping readings, to assess her clients energetically, and adding such embellishments as sound therapy and plasma masks to her treatments. “In traditional Chinese medicine, we have different tools—the pulse, tongue and face—to understand what is going on with the organs,” she explains, noting that every organ is associated with an element, a season and a specific emotion.
“The kidney meridian, a contributor to longevity, is responsible for hormonal balance and is connected to winter. When we see dark circles under the eyes, we can tell the hormonal balance is off. It also signals adrenal fatigue.” Sanchez offers nutritional, as well as hands-on, remedies for the malady. “For hormonal imbalance, I recommend dark foods like blueberries and purple yams, and lots of water.”
Unlike many other aestheticians, Sanchez does not regard furrows as total enemies. “Wrinkles create a wonderful road map to let us know what is going on,” she says. “When my clients see themselves in the mirror, they should not be too judgmental. In Chinese medicine, we see aging and imperfections as a privilege that we earned.”
Still, the goal is to delay evidence of time, however hard one has worked to achieve it. “Aging is beautiful,” says Sanchez, “but we are able to slow the process.” nofauxwellness.com